Dec 11, 2013

Art and Design Go Hand in Hand with Storefronts Seattle

Earlier this spring, Chutney’s, an Indian restaurant and
longtime resident in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, closed its doors.
Like many shuttered buildings, the one housing the former restaurant sat vacant
for months, until early August, when a crew of 10 workers started covering the
exterior with wood from recycled palettes. Clad in the overlapping material, it
appeared shingled. Within several days the entire building, including the large
standalone sign, became an art installation.

The brainchild of architectural designer Greg Lewis, it was
the first in a series of installations that would take place as a part of Storefronts Seattle—a program of the non-profit fiscal arts supporter Shunpike that
strives bring positive change to Seattle streetscapes by working with
architects, land lords, and Realtors to provide artists with installation space
in storefronts or buildings that would otherwise sit empty.

When Stream Real Estate—a sustainable development company that
was planning on turning the restaurant’s lot into a mixed-use building with 36
residential units and 3,400 square feet of retail space—heard about the
Storefronts program, it jumped at the opportunity to work with the
organization.

“We knew we needed an interim use, I started doing some
research, located them and we quickly determined it would be a good fit,” says
Stream agent Marc Angelillo. “Storefronts is a perfect interim use for use to
have some activity at the building while immediately having a positive impact
on the neighborhood until we start redeveloping.”

According to Storefronts manager Anne Blackburn, permission
to alter exterior structures is so rare, that she called back, “about 10
times,” just to double check before giving Lewis the OK to proceed. If you
drive by the corner of 15th Ave. E. and E. Mercer on Capitol Hill, it’s hard to
miss the structure. And even though a new exhibition is up, Lewis’ work still
remains.

“It’s like that Exquisite Corpse game,” Blackburn explains.
“One artist does their installation, but leaves it up when their exhibition is
up, then the next artist comes in and builds off that, and when their exhibition is up the next artist
works from that. It’s a really exciting challenge.”

The current artist, Jennifer Zwick, created “Lamps Meninas”—a
three-dimensional vignette representation of Diego Velazquez’ 1656 painting “Las
Meninas”—using various lights donated from Rejuvenation to represent different
figures in the painting. The original piece depicts a scene from the Spanish royal
court that shows Velazquez painting a portrait that the viewer cannot see, but
an artfully placed mirror at the back of the room reflects the king and queen,
who stand in the exact same position as the view. The young princess, her
attendants, and a dog are also present.

“I wanted to reduce it to its simplest lines, but on another
level take it in a completely different direction that I’d never seen,” Zwick
says, describing her installation. “Finding ordinary objects that are used for
another purpose and reconstructing them is interesting to me. I took what I saw
as the essential attribute of each figure compositionally, and used that to
choose the light that represented it.”

If you find yourself on Capitol Hill before the end of the
month, be sure to check out Zwick’s installation—drive by at night to get the
full effect, and check out the images below to see how Zwick has used interiors
in her previous work.

Seattle artist Jennifer Zwick on Capitol Hill next to her Storefronts Seattle installation "Lamps Meninas." All lighting was donated from Rejuvenation.

"Lamps Meninas" is a three-dimentional interpretation of Diego Velazquez' iconic "Las Meninas," a painting depicting a scene from the Spanish court.

Architectural designer Greg Lewis, the artist who installed before Zwick, covered the entire exterior of the former Chutney's restaurant with recycled palettes.

"The Explorers" A 2005 archival pigment print.

A 2012 window installation by Zwick entitled, "I'm Pretty Sure This is Exactly Right." Zwick often uses furniture and interiors scenes in her work. "It seems like Jennie is also interested in the emotional content of living rooms," Blackburn says. "There's an intimacy there...you're conversing with these objects and there is that intimacy because they are your own.